One Step Forward, Two Steps Back
by Sparkles and Rainbows
Summary: Warning, major character death included! Please read and review and a happy new year!


**A/N yet another new one! Not sure what it is with all the writing at the moment but may as well make the most of it while I don't have multiple essays! Not sure whether to leave this as a one shot or continue it, what do people think? Enjoy and please read and review! Xx **

This hardly seemed to be an appropriate place for the young woman to be, alone, given the circumstances that granted her access to it.

Only in some ways, however. In other ways, it was a completely plausible and expected place for her to be. After all, she had just lost a child and her fiancé, so a graveyard had seemed to her to be the most sensible place to be.

The graveyard was quiet, calm and peaceful. It could even be described as serene. It was late September and the heat of the autumn sun brought some warmth to the woman's shivering body as she stood at the large black metal gates.

The gates were neither open nor closed, and this in itself proved too much of a descision for her to handle. Should she go in or not? She felt her stomach churning and thoughts flying around her mind which currently resembled a live race course with all of her thoughts, feelings and emotions crashing into each other at top speed. She stepped back, 5 steps back to be precise, so that she wasn't close enough to read the writing on the sign that confirmed where she was, yet somehow the small distance between her and the gates appeared to put her mind at ease, if only for that moment. She was faintly aware of people walking behind her, some busily going about their daily lives and not giving her a backwards glance, others who weren't in as much of and slowed their pace down as they walked past her, seemingly deciding to whether to approach her or not.

Lost in thought, the woman remained standing in the same place, twirling a strand of her long blond hair through her fingers as she felt teardrops running down her face. Furious with herself, she wiped them away with a fierce swipe of her hand and unintentionally managed to re-open a scar that hadn't yet completely healed. As she automatically reached up to assess the damage, the second she made contact with the jagged and uneven scar her hand recoiled as if she had touched a burning coal. The scar was a painful reminder of why she was there; she had gotten it in the car crash that had killed her fiancé and daughter. Their funerals had only been the previous day, but she had insisted she was fine, going into work that morning despite advice from almost all of her colleagues. She had been fine, or at least she thought she was, until an RTC came in. That had just proved too much, too soon and she had run out of the hospital as fast as she could, blatantly ignoring her colleagues shouts for her to stop as she sprinted down the pavement, away from it all.

She took her phone out of her pocket of her NHS fleece that she had been wearing over her scrubs on her break and scrolled through the notifications, sighing. Missed calls, texts and answerphone messages. Mainly from Zoe and Fletch, some from Tess and Charlie and other staff members that had been on shift with her.

Sam had made up her mind and was about to walk through the gates and into the graveyard when a voice behind her made her turn around "Sam!"

She looked at this person who had chosen to interrupt her daydreaming and she couldn't hide her surprise at who it was. Connie Beauchamp. She recognised her, of course she did, but she had never really been familiar with the consultant "What do you want?" she muttered, half turning away from her as she spoke.

"To see if you were alright" she replied, mirroring Sam's actions and turning by 90 degrees, pretending to be looking at a black cat that was walking past her.

"Never better. Anything else?" Sam spoke icily, sarcasm lacing her words.

"Look, I wish more than anything that was something more that I could have done to save your daughter. But there wasn't anything more that could have been done to help her, I'm sorry"

Sam glanced over to her, too drained by the day's events to argue with her "I know that you did everything that you could but it wasn't enough. You couldn't bring her back! Look, I-I need some time" she stuttered, motioning towards the graveyard "Tell Zoe…"

Connie seemed to know what she meant and nodded, taking it as her cue to leave and giving the young doctor a small smile as she walked past.

…

Alone again, Sam walked through the gates and into the graveyard where she instantly spotted the two graves belonging to her fiancé and daughter, tributes of flowers and teddies scattering the mounds of fresh earth. Tears clouded her vision but this time she didn't wipe them away, instead focusing on keeping one foot in front of the other as she slowly made her way up the gravel path.

She picked up one of the cards that had blown off the ribbon in the wind and read it _'To a wonderful husband Tom Kent, and a beautiful daughter, Emily Kent. Angels taken far too soon but never forgotten'_ she recognised the handwriting instantly as Fletch's and the slightest hint of a smile graced her features for a second before her face crumpled and she allowed herself to burst into tears, letting the card fall from her hand and dropping to the ground as she did so.

"No. No!" she screamed as all the grief from the past week suddenly hit her like a tidal wave "Why did you leave me? Why? Answer me!" she almost laughed at the irony of the situation. She would never hear their voices again, their laughter or tears. Except from in photos, she would never see them again.

Emily, 4 years old, had only just started in the Reception class at the local primary school. She had been there 2 weeks, made friends quickly and adored her teachers. Sam sighed; she certainly didn't envy the teachers who would have had to break the news to her classmates, who would have been expecting to see her at school on the Monday as normal and so she wasn't surprised to see teddies and cards inside which Emily's friends had painstakingly signed their names in their neatest handwriting.

Emily's 5th birthday was the day after the crash. Sam took her phone out again and scrolled through her images to find the one of the pile of presents that she and Tom had spent so long wrapping up, wanting them to look perfect. That one picture was all it took for the tears to start falling again. The presents were still stacked in the corner of the living room, ready for her to open the following morning, apart from that evening she never came home.

*Flashback*

"_Tom. Tom, what are you doing? Swerve out of the way!" Sam screamed as she saw a car hurtling towards them "Move out of the way!" she repeated, but it was too late. She had seen Tom desperately trying to move out of the other car's way, but it was going too fast, spinning and skidding to a halt as it crashed into the driver's side of their car, leaving Sam trapped inside the wreckage and her fiancé and daughter immediately unconscious from the impact of the crash._

"_Tom? Tom! Answer me!" Sam cried as she turned to face him. Taking a deep breath she looked to the seat behind him where Emily was "Emily! Emily, talk to Mummy!" she pleaded desperately with her daughter, but got no response._

_She was a doctor; she knew why they weren't answering her. But she couldn't lose hope and give up on them._

*End flashback*

Sam ran a hand through her hair, staring at the 2 newest graves in the cemetery. She sat down on the grass in between them and tentatively placed one hand on each of the mounds of earth, as if doing so might bring them back.

"I love you, both of you" she cried, half-heartedly attempting to wipe away the tears that were rapidly cascading down her face "I'm so sorry. Sorry that I couldn't save you"

In the deepest depths of her mind, she knew that there was nothing she could have done that would have made any difference. Yet she still blamed herself, constantly going over all the what if's in her head.

Survivor's guilt. Out of the horrific incident, she was the only one who had survived, minus the driver of the other car. Why had it been her to survive? Why not Tom? Or Emily?

She was pulled from her thoughts as she heard a very familiar sound. The sound of heels clicking against the gravel path gradually began to get louder and louder as Zoe walked towards her "Sam?" she called over to her, not entirely sure if she was expecting a response from her young colleague or not.

Sam chose to ignore her, not at all in the mood for a conversation, instead turning her attention back to the flowers and cards that decorated the graves.

The flowers were bright, colourful, cheerful almost. Sam felt a sudden urge to rip them up, to destroy them. Anything to get rid of the overwhelming evidence that proved they no longed walked in the same world. She reached down, picked up a bunch of flowers and waited for the same urge to destroy them, the anger that she had felt when she realised that people were starting to move on but it never came. Instead she let the flowers fall from her hand and back onto her daughter's grave.

Sam didn't know what she supposed to do or how she was supposed to feel. Was there a given way that people expected her to act? She didn't know. She had seen death enough times to know that it affected different people in different ways; no two people reacted to losing someone they loved in the same way.

"Why are you here?" Sam asked, not even bothering to turn around to face her. Before Zoe had a chance to reply, she added "What is it with everyone today? Why can't you all just leave me alone?" she was aware that her words must have sounded harsh, but she just wanted to be left alone.

She heard Zoe audibly sigh before replying "I came to see if you were alright, which you _obviously_ are" she was on dangerous territory with her chosen approach, she knew that, but she also knew that Sam didn't respond well to sympathy and hugs. Zoe knew full well what the younger woman was doing; picking an argument with her in the hope that it would make her feel normal.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Sam shot back at her quickly, even though she knew. She would never admit it, but she knew why Zoe had essentially entered into an argument with her. She needed to get it out of her system; she had been bottling up her emotions for the last week and now she felt like her head would explode.

"Sam, you have to let us help. You can't keep pushing people away!"

"Watch me" Sam responded with surprising calm "What do you know about me, what I've been through? You don't know me, you don't know anything about me!" at this point Zoe remained quiet, letting her colleague and friend start to break down her barriers, start the grieving process that she so desperately needed to begin "I don't need your help! Why would I? I was on my own for years before! Before…" she suddenly faltered, not knowing what to say "Before. Before I met Tom" the last sentence was a barely audible whisper but Zoe still heard her, finally making the descision to go over to her and try to comfort her.

"He still loves you, you know. He wouldn't want you to do this to yourself"

"Do what?"

Zoe moved so she could look her in the eyes "Blame yourself for something that wasn't your fault. There was nothing that you could have done"

"I should have done something!"

"Like what? Sam, you were trapped. What could you have done?" Zoe asked her, waiting for the inevitable silence that would soon follow "Look, you can't stay here all day. Go home, Sam"

She watched as Sam instantly shook her head. She couldn't stand the thought of having to go back to the once happy family home that held so many memories for her.

"You can stay at mine? If you want to, that is" Zoe's voice softened as she watched the young woman slowly nod her head, turning back to face the two graves and placing a kiss on each of their photos "Ready, Sam?" she asked gently.

"I'm ready" Sam's voice was quiet and shaky as she spoke. She wasn't ready, not in any sense of the word, to say goodbye to Tom and Emily, but she had to start somewhere. One step forward, two steps back she thought to herself as she turned away from the graves and started to slowly walk away, blowing a kiss over her shoulder as she did so.


End file.
